Goal Is To Reduce Health Care Disparities

FARMINGTON — Roslyn Hamilton's heroine while growing up was her mother, a nurse who worked long hours in a Boston hospital.

Virginia Hamilton tried to steer her daughter toward a teaching career, but Roslyn Hamilton thought she could do more good in the health profession.

``I was really interested in doing what she did,'' Hamilton said.

She has worked for three decades as a public health advocate in local and regional health departments and organizations in Connecticut. She was the head of the health department in Bridgeport, the state's largest city, from 1993 to 1999. Most recently, she headed a New Haven-area organization and led its efforts to promote substance abuse prevention.

But now, at 53 and with plenty of experience, she's happy to have a statewide arena for her efforts. As a newly hired program officer for the Farmington-based Connecticut Health Foundation, one of her aims is to help close health disparities between minorities and whites across Connecticut.

``I'm almost full circle now; taking the health system as it affects people statewide is the piece of the circle that was missing,'' said Hamilton, who is black. ``I'm eager to join an organization that has the power and resources to make good things happen in Connecticut.''

The foundation, with offices in The Exchange across from the University of Connecticut Health Center on Farmington Avenue, is the state's largest independent, nonprofit grant-making organization dedicated to improving the health of Connecticut residents.

It was established in 1999, when the nonprofit HMO ConnectiCare Inc. converted to a for-profit company. The foundation was formed as part of the conversion, and under an agreement with the Connecticut attorney general's office, the foundation received 100 percent of the equity in ConnectiCare -- in the form of shares. Private investors bought the shares in January 2001, leaving the foundation with about $130 million.

Since its inception, the foundation has given $6.6 million in grants to health programs and organizations in the state. It will donate at least 5 percent of its endowment each year, said foundation spokeswoman Monette Goodrich.

The foundation's board has decided to focus on three main goals, all with an emphasis on people who are unserved or underserved by the health care system: improving mental health care for children; expanding access to dental/oral health care, and reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

Hamilton, who has a bachelor's degree in sociology from Tufts University and a master's degree in public health from Yale University Medical School, would like to boost the number of blacks and Latinos from Connecticut in the medical profession.

Part of Hamilton's job will be to monitor the progress of programs funded by the foundation, and to give them technical help.

One of the grants she's excited about -- $50,000 given last December to the health center in Farmington -- will be used to evaluate a program designed to increase the number of minority students training for health professions. It's a collaboration of the health center, Hartford public schools, Central Connecticut State University, Wesleyan University and the University of Connecticut.

``We're trying to do system change at this foundation,'' Hamilton said. ``How do we change the system, to help people get the same access to health care?''

``Some people see it as a privilege for those of privilege,'' she said. ``I think of health care as a right. But when you look at how it plays out here and in other parts of the country, it is something that you get if you have the money.''